Chris barracks for Barack

Chris barracks for Barack

By Rodney Chester

December 10, 2008 11:00pm

CHRIS Rock, who campaigned for Barack Obama, says having a black man as president is like having a slutty girlfriend who will go all the way.

"The fact that there wasn't a black president really defined my relationship, or the black people's relationship, with the country more than I thought," he says.
"It's like, anything you can't do sexually defines your sexual relationship with a girl. How is it? Well, she doesn't do this."
Now, he says, things are different.
"There are no rules, she does everything," he says with that distinctive grin spreading across his face.
"That's what it's like. America is now sluttier, more available."
Rock is sitting in a Sydney hotel room promoting his new movie Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa in which he plays a zebra who is "black with white stripes".
But a movie which earned $US63 million ($A96 million) on its opening weekend in America doesn't really need much promotion, and Rock lights up when the conversation quickly drifts to topics other than this latest animated animal flick.
An obvious question to put to one of the world's best-known stand-up comedians is whether fame helps the laughs come easier.
"It's not that they come easier or harder," he says. "It's just the bigger you get, the louder the silences. It's like: 'They're really not laughing right now. I'm really famous, they should be laughing.' And they're conscious they're not laughing. 'F---, this guy's a star. I'm not laughing.'
"But if you're not famous and they're not laughing it's not a big deal."
Rock, who had been a Clinton supporter, was one of the first to make the switch to Obama. And he says it wasn't just as simple as one black man supporting another.
"Something didn't feel right about the same people running the government back and forth. There's something kind of perverse and un-American about it," he says.
"It's like we were turning into England with the royal family ruling America."
"(Obama) seemed like a decent guy. I don't know how to explain it. When I heard he didn't vote for the war, and then early on he was only taking money from individuals I knew this guy was different. I just jumped on board."
During the campaign, Rock announced America needed Obama because in tough economic times the country needed a man who knew what it was like to be poor. If he was having trouble getting laid, Rock says, he wouldn't turn to Brad Pitt for advice.
Having a black man as president is something that Rock has contemplated for years. In his early stand-up routines, Rock would joke that if there was ever a black man as vice-president he would be willing to shoot the commander-in-chief. "I would be the most popular black guy in prison," he used to say.
A few months ago, he announced a new slant on how to get a black man into the top spot. Obama, he argued, should have chosen a Mexican as his running mate. That way, any possible assassins would not go ahead with their evil plan, fearing it would lead to a wave of migrants coming over the border.
He has even contemplated what it would be like if he was in the Oval Office. He directed, wrote and starred in the 2003 movie Head of State which started with the premise of how ridiculous it would be for a black man to become president.
"It was a complete joke," Rock says dismissive of the project. "It was such a joke a studio gave me $20 million. How about a movie where a black guy is president?"
Rock believes comedy should know no boundaries although, having taken his stand-up around the world, he says different audiences see the funny side in different ways.
"In Australia, they like dirty jokes," he says.
"It's like a movie. If you see a comedy, different jokes work differently every night but the movie plays the same.
"I've seen (Woody Allen's new movie) Vicky Cristina Barcelona about four or five times, and every time I see it different jokes play different."
Rock cites Allen as one of his favourite directors and hopes he will one day work with the filmmaker who also started out as a stand-up comedian.
"It'd better be soon, the guy's 70 years old," he says, although he admits the cast of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which includes Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz, will keep Allen alive. "Scarlett Johansson could keep me alive, I'll tell you that," he says.
While he's hoping for Woody to give him a call, his immediate plans are working on the remake of Frank Oz's farce Death at a Funeral, the British film that was a hit this year with Australian audiences.
"It didn't get a big response in the States," Rock says. "I l-o-v-e-d it."
The good news for fans of the original Death at a Funeral is that Rock plans to keep it intact, from the drug references to the gay midget.
"Our goal with this one is just don't f--- it up because I love it, it's perfect," he says.
And, in between making films, he plans to keep on doing his trade of standing in front of a group of strangers and trying to get them to laugh.
"I like doing it," he says. "It's the only piece of art that I get to do that gets judged solely on its artistic merit.
"There's no number it made this week or whatever."

from: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24780536-5003420,00.html